y from them with
gladness, as from a wild and furious tyrant." For to men fond of such
things, it is perhaps disagreeable and irksome to be without them; but
to the contented and satisfied it is more delightful to want them than
to enjoy them; and yet he does not want who feels no desire; therefore
I say that this freedom from desire is more delightful than enjoyment.

But if the prime of life has more cheerful enjoyment of those very
pleasures, in the first place they are but petty objects which it
enjoys, as I have said before; then they are those of which old age,
if it does not abundantly possess them, is not altogether destitute.
As he is more delighted with Turpio Ambivius, who is spectator on the
foremost bench, yet he also is delighted who is in the hindmost; so
youth having a close view of pleasures is perhaps more gratified; but
old age is as much delighted as is necessary in viewing them at a
distance. However, of what high value are the following circumstances,
that the soul, after it has served out, as it were, its time under
lust, ambition, contention, enmities, and all the passions, shall
retire within itself, and, as the phrase is, live with itself? But if
it has, as it were, food for study and learning, nothing is more
delightful than an old age of leisure. I saw Caius Gallus, the
intimate friend of your father, Scipio, almost expiring in the
employment of calculating the sky and the earth. How often did
daylight overtake him when he had begun to draw some figure by night,
how often did night, when he had begun in the morning! How it did
delight him to predict to us the eclipses of the sun and the moon,
long before their occurrence! What shall we say in the case of
pursuits less dignified, yet, notwithstanding, requiring acuteness!
How Naevius did delight in his Punic war! how Plautus in his
Truculentus! how in his Pseudolus! I saw also the old man Livy,[15]
who, tho he had brought a play upon the stage six years before I was
born, in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus, yet advanced in age
even to the time of my youth. Why should I speak of Publius Licinius
Crassus' study both of pontifical and civil law? or of the present
Publius Scipio, who within these few days was created chief pontiff?
Yet we have seen all these persons whom I have mentioned, ardent in
these pursuits when old men. But as to Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius
rightly called the "marrow of persuasion," with what great zeal did we
see h